The use of plastic elastomeric ear tags for the purpose of identifying animals, especially livestock such as cows and hogs, has become a common practice. Traditionally, both one and two-piece ear tags have been used to help farmers and ranchers identify their own livestock. Once a livestock animal is slaughtered however, there is no current practical way to trace the animal's origin.
As more attention is brought to bear on calamities such as "Mad Cow Disease", it is apparent that diseased animals need to be quickly identified to prevent contaminated meat from getting into the general food supply. One of the difficulties encountered is the inability to quickly trace where the diseased animal came from during the slaughtering process, and whether all infected animals have been found.
The present invention provides an animal tracing system having a premise information panel and a method that permits the animal slaughterhouse to quickly determine where a diseased animal originated from by reference to a human separable premise information panel that carries historical information on the origin of the animal. In addition, since the separable premise information panel also contains animal identifying information that corresponds to the animal identifying information on an identification panel which is left on the carcass during slaughter of the animal, one can cross reference the two parts to quickly identify the carcass associated with the premise identification panel even though the premise information panel has been separated from the slaughtered animal.
It is known in the art to have attachments to animal ear tags to hold insecticides. The attachments include both a carrier and an insecticide located within the carrier. For example, the prior art U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,074 includes a circular disk having a radial slot which attaches to the stud of an ear tag. The disk is made from a sintered thermoplastic and is impregnated with an insecticide which is effective against ticks. The sintered thermoplastic carrier allows the insecticide to be released from the sintered thermoplastic disk over an extended period of time. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,694,781 includes a container which attaches to an animal ear tag with the container having a sponge therein with the sponge being filled with an insecticide.
It is also known in the art to have the main panel of an animal ear tag separable in response to snagging. For example, Fearing U.S. Pat. No. 4,209,924 discloses an identification panel with a weakened portion that will tear away if the animal's ear becomes snagged on brush or the like. An identification number is carried on both the severable section of the panel and the non-severable section of the panel.
In contrast to the prior art insecticide carriers, the present invention provides a second, separate, solid non-porous, information panel for parasitic attachment to the stud of an ear tag, with the second separate information panel having a visible information area which contains printed historical information such as the location of where the animal came from as well as a cross-reference to the animal identification panel on the animal ear tag. In contrast to an ear tag, as shown in prior art Fearing U.S. Pat. No. 4,209,924 which has a single tearable panel with identification numbers on two regions of the tearable panel, the premise information panel of the present invention is a separate panel from the identification panel and is separable from the stud in response to human intervention. To prevent loss of the present invention due the snagging the present invention can be located in a protected position on the animal ear tag so as to minimize accidental loss due to snagging.
The premise information panel is referred to herein as a parasitic panel because it requires no additional stud as it attaches to the stud of an existing ear tag without the use of a separate stud. It is further identified as a premise information panel because it contains historical information in bar code form or the like that can be used to determine the origin of the animal. In addition, the premise information panel can be attached or detached from an animal ear tag without damaging the ear tag as the premise information panel is sufficiently weak to enable separation, yet sufficiently strong so that separation does not deface the area containing the historical information, rendering it unreadable.